Chris Patton

Chris Patton, the man behind voices such as Yuiichi Aizawa (Kanon) and Satou Tatsuhiro (Welcome to the NHK), recently granted me quite a lenghty interview.

Before I get down to it, I’d like to formally apologize for getting you, Mr. Patton, confused with Crispin Freeman’s work on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya with your work on Kanon. Those 2 characters are just so similar, it gets confusing.

Anyway, now for what you all come here for!

How did you get started? Was it one of those “Eureka!” moments that made you realize that this is what you wanted to do or did you do other jobs first before figuring out what you wanted to do?
The question of how I got started is sort of an involved one. Or rather, it takes answering with an involved answer, I should say. So, let’s get down to it. Basically, when I was a very little kid, I would always read aloud. I even recorded myself reading aloud and would play my voice back and listen for what I thought sounded phony or realistic or what not. I also was constantly doing impressions, creating characters in my head that I would share with anybody who’d care to listen, and even putting on plays in my garage. At nine, I got into professional theatre, and have been involved since. But, it was in 1999 that I saw an ad for ADV Films. I jumped at it, and within about two weeks of auditioning had landed my first role. The rest, I guess, is pretty explanatory if you’ve followed my career at all, but suffice it to say, voiceover is probably what I do the most of in my career.

When doing voice work, do you have any ‘rituals’ you go through before entering or upon entering the recording booth?
Before entering the booth, I usually just make sure I’m vocally warmed up. As far as rituals go, yes, there are usually one or two things I do connected to my spiritual path that I feel embolden me to give the best performance possible.

What are your 3 favorite roles that you have performed over the course of your career?
If you mean in anime, I suppose my three favorite have been Ayato in RahXephon, Sato in Welcome to the NHK, and Hajime in Ghost Stories.
What is your least favorite?
The puppy killer in Elfen Lied.

What is your favorite aspect of being a voice actor?
I like the sort of isolated feeling of being in a booth and creating a character out of almost thin air. As much as I love being on stage, there’s something to be said for sitting in a tiny dark room with just you, your voice and your imagination running wild.

You also do commercials and audiobook recording. How is that different, if at all, from dubbing for anime? Is it harder or easier?
It’s very different. You’re not so worried about things like mouth flaps, and there usually is very little, to no, screaming ’til you feel like you might destroy your voice. Audiobook narration is probably one of the greatest joys that exists as a vocal actor. It is pure storytelling. It’s almost primal. Commercials are fun because they’re quick, and you usually get paid a nice amount of cash. But really, audiobook narration is almost a Zen place for me.

Many persons in the career of voice work always mention a background with stage acting. You yourself are no stranger to this, having acted on stage as early as the age of 10. Do you still do stage performance? What do you think about performing in front of a crowd as opposed to performing in front of the usual crew in a dubbing studio?
Nothing compares to performing on stage. The stage will always be my home, my base camp. Voiceover may be what I excel at, or where I make my most money, but there is nothing quite like the rush of live theatre.

Now for the more role specific questions:

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (AND THIS IS WHERE I MESSED UP. Luckily, Mr. Patton is very understanding)
Currently, one of your biggest roles is that of Kyon in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Kyon is a cynical guy, monotone and never really truly happy. Do you see any similarities between him and yourself?

(okay, so, this should be about Yuuichi, right? )
I like Yuuichi. A lot. Mainly because at first I thought he was this tremendous jerk, but as the show progresses, you get to see into his heart and he really opens up. As far as similarities go? I don’t know. I’d like to think I have the same capacity for compassion that he has. I hope I do.

Ghost Stories

The dub for Ghost Stories was a gag dub. There was a lot of adlibbing and rewriting that went on in the process of recording and producing the shows American release. It’s hard to imagine that any one cast member didn’t have fun. What do you have to say about playing the role of Hajime? Was it fun?
Dude, there has never been another role as fun as Hajime. It was crude, irreverent, crass, vulgar, over-the-top and total silly bliss working on that show. I think it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever been involved with.

–

When working in the studio, as many documentaries on the process have shown, it’s a solitary deal. You aren’t with the other voice actors at the time of performance. How does that affect your own performance? Do voice actors hang out together outside of work?
It doesn’t affect my performance at all. I think most people who are competent voice actors have an imaginative enough mind to almost conjure the other voices around them, so that they may act and react accordingly while alone in the booth. Do we hang out? Well, I’m friends with a lot of people in the business, yeah. But most of us stay so busy that the only time many of us get to see each other is at conventions, which as you may know, I’m on an indefinite break from right now.

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For the first time, I’ve gotten some requests from other people, some fans, some not, to field you some questions of their own.

“Why do voice actors seem to choose to emulate a characters personality to the point where they make them seem unrealistic. For example, actresses acting a character in falsetto (sometimes in a higher range than the original seiyuu) or my own personal bane, male voice actors putting on a what I can only describe as “the drunk idiot” voice (see any character from Dragonball) as oppose to a sensible voice, such as your Kyon for example?”
I don’t know why any actor chooses to do what they do. It’s not my business. My job is to go into the booth, see and get to know the character, and voice it to the best of my abilities. I don’t care what “the original seiyuu” did, or what those around me are doing. My job is to do my personal best, and to imbue the character with as much truth and realism as possible.

And

“How do you prepare yourself for a new voice role and how close to the original Japanese personality do you strive to make a character when voice acting them?”
First, I never, ever strive to sound like the Seiyuu. That’s not acting, that’s called imitating, or copying. And I don’t do it. It’s boring. I’m voicing this character, in English, for an American and Western European audience, and with that in mind, along with whatever research I’ve been able to do about the character, I give the character ( hopefully ) realistic sounding life with my voice. To reiterate, I don’t listen to the Seiyuu, except maybe to hear the rhythm or pacing of how a line may fit into a scene, or possibly to hear if he’s angry or seemingly sad or indifferent in any given moment. But to copy or “try to match” a Seiyuu is not my job. My job is to be an actor.

And finally, two more questions before I finish up.

Being a part of the anime industry, I’m sure you know that there are two types of fans, those who do dubs and those who do subs, which do you fall into?

If yes to subs, do you watch fansubs?
If no, do you support the idea of fansubbing?

First, I would argue that there is a third type of fan, that who watches both, or either, depending on the show. Myself, I never watch anime in Japanese. I like to watch tv, not read it. Especially in the realm of animation, where one really needs to be looking at the artwork and expressions to appreciate the piece. If you’re spending half your time looking at these yellow letters on your screen, well, you’re missing half the show. I think people who speak English and only watch subs are actually just Japanophiles putting on airs. These are the kind of people who will troll you on the internet because you’re an English voice actor, and because they have nothing better to do with their time but play on forums or watch subtitled anime, all with some imagined sense of superiority. Quite annoying. But, to each their own.

I have no opinion on fansubbing.